| Jeremiah | |
|---|---|
Jeremiah, as depicted by Michelangelo from the Sistine Chapel ceiling |
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| Born | c. 655 BC Anathoth |
| Died | 586 BC Egypt |
| Occupation | Prophet |
| Parents | Hilkiah |
Jeremiah ( /dʒɛrɨˈmaɪ.ə/;[1] Hebrew：יִרְמְיָה , Modern Hebrew:Yirməyāhū, IPA: jirməˈjaːhu, Tiberian:Yirmĭyahu, Greek:Ἰερεμίας), meaning "Yahweh exalts", also called the "Weeping prophet" [2] was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. Jeremiah is traditionally credited with authoring the Book of Jeremiah, 1 Kings, 2 Kings and the Book of Lamentations [3] with the assistance and under the editorship of Baruch ben Neriah, his scribe and disciple.
Judaism considers the Book of Jeremiah part of its canon, and regards Jeremiah as the second of the major prophets. Islam also considers Jeremiah a prophet, and he is listed as a prophet in all the collections of Stories of the Prophets. Christianity also regard Jeremiah as a prophet and he is quoted in the New Testament.[4] It has been interpreted that Jeremiah “spiritualized and individualized religion and insisted upon the primacy of the individual’s relationship with God.”[5]
According to the Book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah was a kohen (Jewish priest),[6] from a landowning family.[7] It is mentioned that he had a joyful early life,[8] however, the difficulties in Jeremiah and the Book of Lamentations have prompted scholars to refer to him as "the weeping prophet".[9] Jeremiah was called to prophetic ministry in c. 626 BC,[10] a few years after King Josiah of Judah had turned the nation toward repentance from the widespread idolatrous practices of his father and grandfather. Jeremiah’s job was to reveal the sins of the people and explain the reason for the impending disaster (destruction by the Babylonian army and captivity),[11][12] “And when your people say, 'Why has the {Lord}} our God done all these things to us?' you shall say to them, 'As you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve foreigners in a land that is not yours.'"[13]
God’s personal message to Jeremiah, “Attack you they will, overcome you they can’t,”[14] was fulfilled many times in the Biblical narrative, Jeremiah was attacked by his own brothers,[15] beaten and put into the stocks by a priest and false prophet,[16] imprisoned by the king,[17] threatened with death,[18] thrown into a cistern by Judah’s officials,[19] and opposed by a false prophet.[20] When Nebuchadnezzar seized Jerusalem in 586 BC,[21] he ordered that Jeremiah be freed from prison and treated well.[22]
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Jeremiah was born into a priestly family. He was the son of Hilkiah from the village of Anathoth [23][24] The Book of Jeremiah says that Jeremiah was called by Yahweh to prophesy Jerusalem’s destruction [25] that would occur by invaders from the North.[26] This was because Israel had been unfaithful to the laws of the covenant and had forsaken God by worshiping the Baals.[27] The people of Israel had even gone as far as building high altars to Baal in order to burn their children in fire as offerings to Baal.[28] This nation had deviated so far from God that they had actually broken the covenant, causing God to withdraw His blessings. Jeremiah was guided by God to proclaim that the nation of Israel would be faced with famine, be plundered and taken captive by foreigners who would exile them to a foreign land.[29][30]
Jeremiah’s ministry was active from the thirteenth year of Josiah, king of Judah (626 BC), until sometime after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in 587 BC.[31] This period spanned the reigns of five kings of Judah: Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoichin, and Zedekiah.[32]
The Lord called Jeremiah to prophetic ministry in about 626 BC,[10] about one year after Josiah king of Judah had turned the nation toward repentance from the widespread idolatrous practices of his father and grandfather. Ultimately, Josiah’s reforms would not be enough to preserve Judah and Jerusalem from destruction, because the sins of Manasseh, Josiah’s grandfather, had gone too far.[33] Such was the lust of the nation for false gods that after Josiah’s death, the nation would quickly return to the gods of the surrounding nations.[34] Jeremiah was appointed to reveal the sins of the people and the coming consequences.[11][12]
In contrast to Isaiah, who eagerly accepted his prophetic call,[35] and similar to Moses who was less than eager,[36] Jeremiah resisted the call by complaining that he was only a child and did not know how to speak.[24] However, the Lord insisted that Jeremiah go and speak as commanded, and he touched Jeremiah’s mouth and put the word of the Lord into Jeremiah’s mouth.[37] God told Jeremiah to “Get yourself ready!”[38] The character traits and practices Jeremiah was to acquire in order to be ready are specified in Jeremiah 1 and include not being afraid, standing up to speak, speaking as told, and going where sent.[39] Other disciplines that contributed to the training of the young prophet and confirmation of his message are described as not turning to the people,[40] not marrying or fathering children,[41] not going to weddings or funerals,[42] not sitting in a house with feasting,[43] and not sitting in the company of merrymakers.[44] Since Jeremiah emerges well trained and fully literate from his earliest preaching, the relationship between him and the Shaphan family has been used to suggest that he may have trained at the scribal school in Jerusalem over which Shaphan presided.[45][46]
In his early ministry, Jeremiah was primarily a preaching prophet,[47] going where the Lord directed him to preach oracles throughout Israel.[46] He condemned idolatry,[48] the greed of priests, and false prophets.[49] Many years later, God instructed Jeremiah to write down these early oracles and other messages.[50]
Jeremiah's ministry prompted naysayers to plot against him. Even the people of Anathoth sought to kill him. (Jer.11) Unhappy with Jeremiah’s message, possibly for concern that it would shut down the Anathoth sanctuary, his priestly kin and the men of Anathoth conspired to take his life. However, the Lord revealed the conspiracy to Jeremiah, protected his life, and declared disaster for the men of Anathoth.[46][51] When Jeremiah complains to the Lord about this persecution, the Lord explains that the attacks on him will become worse.[52]
Physical persecution started when the priest Pashur ben Immer, a temple official, sought out Jeremiah to have him beaten and put him in the stocks at the Upper Gate of Benjamin for a day. After this, Jeremiah expresses lament over the difficulty that speaking God’s word has caused him and regrets becoming a laughingstock and the target of mockery.[53] He recounts how if he tries to shut the word of the Lord inside and not mention God’s name, the word becomes like fire in his heart and he is unable to hold it in.[54] The experiences are so troubling for Jeremiah, that he expresses regret at ever being born.
At the same time while Jeremiah was prophesying coming destruction because of the sins of the nation, a number of other prophets were prophesying peace.[55] The Lord had Jeremiah speak against these false prophets.
For example, during the reign of king Zedekiah, The Lord instructed Jeremiah to make a yoke of the message that the nation would be subject to the king of Babylon and that listening to the false prophets would bring a much worse disaster. The prophet Hananiah opposed Jeremiah’s message. He took the yoke off of Jeremiah’s neck, broke it, and prophesied to the priests and all the people that within two years the Lord would break the yoke of the king of Babylon.
The Biblical narrative portrays Jeremiah as being subject to additional persecutions. After Jeremiah prophesied that Jerusalem would be handed over to the Babylonian army, the king’s officials, including Pashur the priest, tried to convince King Zedekiah that Jeremiah should be put to death because he was discouraging the soldiers as well as the people. Zedekiah answered that he would not oppose them. Consequently, the king’s officials took Jeremiah and put him down into a cistern, where he sank down into the mud. The intent seemed to be to kill Jeremiah by allowing him to starve to death in a manner designed to allow the officials to claim to be innocent of his blood.[56] A Cushite rescued Jeremiah by pulling him out of the cistern, but Jeremiah remained imprisoned until Jerusalem fell to the Babylonian army in 587 BC.[57]
The Babylonians released Jeremiah, and showed him great kindness, allowing Jeremiah to choose the place of his residence, according to a Babylonian edict. Jeremiah accordingly went to Mizpah in Benjamin with Gedaliah, who had been made governor of Judea.[58]
Johanan succeeded Gedaliah, who had been assassinated by an Israelite prince in the pay of Ammon "for working with the Babylonians." Refusing to listen to Jeremiah's counsel, Johanan fled to Egypt, taking with him Jeremiah and Baruch, Jeremiah's faithful scribe and servant, and the king's daughters.[59] There, the prophet probably spent the remainder of his life, still seeking in vain to turn the people to the Lord, from whom they had so long revolted.[60] There is no authentic record of his death.
The biblical narrative includes a number of cases of Jeremiah being given unusual instructions requiring him to act out parables or behave in ways contrary to expectations of prophetic office. Much like the prophet Isaiah who had to walk stripped and barefoot for three years[61] and the prophet Ezekiel who had to lie on his side for 390 days and eat measured food,[62] Jeremiah is instructed to perform a number of prophetic parables[63] to illustrate the Lord’s message to his people. For example, Jeremiah buys a clay jar and smashes it in the Valley of Ben Hinnom in front of elders and priests to illustrate that the Lord will smash the nation of Judah and the city of Judah beyond repair.[64] The Lord instructs Jeremiah to make a yoke from wood and leather straps and to put it on his own neck to demonstrate how the Lord will put the nation under the yoke of the king of Babylon.[65]
In this parable, the Lord asked Jeremiah to buy a belt and wear it around his waist for a time ensuring that it did not come in contact with water. Later, the Lord came to Jeremiah again and then asked him to take the belt to Perath and to hide it in a rock crevice. Several days later he was asked to return to where he hid the belt and retrieve it. When Jeremiah did so, the belt was completely ruined and useless. Just as a belt is bound around the waist, God had bound the people of Israel to his covenant. The ruining of the belt was to be like the ruining of Judah and Jerusalem’s pride. Its uselessness is as useless as the gods they served and worshiped.[66]
In Jeremiah's ministry, he declared that God had likened the filling of wineskins to filling with drunkenness all who lived in the land of Israel, including the kings who sat on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets and all those in Jerusalem. Then it was proclaimed that God would smash them one against the other, both parents and children, and they were not to be interceded for with pity, mercy nor compassion.[67] God was so angry over their sins, that he says that even if Moses and Samuel were to intercede for the people, he would not relent.[68]
While at the potter's house, Jeremiah watched a craftsman shaping a bowl from clay on the wheel. When it became marred in his hands, the potter then reshaped it into another bowl that suited best. This is how God wanted Jeremiah to envision the reshaping of Israel.(Jeremiah 18:1-6)
In order to contrast the people’s disobedience with the obedience of the Rechabites, the Lord has Jeremiah invite the Rechabites to drink wine, in disobedience to their ancestor’s command. The Rechabites refused, and God commended them.
"This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Go and tell the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem, “Will you not learn a lesson and obey my words?” declares the Lord. “Jonadab son of Recab ordered his sons not to drink wine and this command has been kept. To this day they do not drink wine, because they obey their forefather's command. But I have spoken to you again and again, yet you have not obeyed me. Again and again I sent all my servants the prophets to you. They said, ‘Each of you must turn from your wicked ways and reform your actions; do not follow other gods to serve them. Then you will live in the land I have given to you and your fathers.’ But you have not paid attention or listened to me. The descendants of Jonadab son of Recab have carried out the command their forefather gave them, but these people have not obeyed me.” Jeremiah 35:13-16 (NIV)
During the siege of Jerusalem, when it was finally obvious that Jeremiah’s prophecies of disaster would be fulfilled and that destruction and exile were imminent, the Lord instructed Jeremiah to make a real-estate investment by purchasing a field at Anathoth from his cousin Hanamel. Jeremiah obeyed, weighed out the silver on scales, and had the deed witnessed and sealed. The Lord was making the point that the nation would eventually be restored and that houses and fields would once again be bought in the land.[69]
Commentator Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote that the book is written as if Jeremiah not only heard as words but personally felt in his body and emotions the experience of what he prophesied:
was a clue as to how difficult the overwhelming, personality-shattering experience of being a vehicle for Divine revelation was, on one of the most difficult tasks ever assigned, and how difficult it was to be able to see, in advance, ones own failure.
In Jewish rabbinic literature, especially the aggadah, Jeremiah and Moses are often mentioned together;[70] their life and works being presented in parallel lines. The following ancient midrash is especially interesting, in connection with Deut. xviii. 18, in which "a prophet like Moses" is promised: "As Moses was a prophet for forty years, so was Jeremiah; as Moses prophesied concerning Judah and Benjamin, so did Jeremiah; as Moses' own tribe [the Levites under Korah] rose up against him, so did Jeremiah's tribe revolt against him; Moses was cast into the water, Jeremiah into a pit; as Moses was saved by a slave (the slave of Pharaoh's daughter); so, Jeremiah was rescued by a slave (Ebed-melech); Moses reprimanded the people in discourses; so did Jeremiah."[71]
As with many other prophets of the Hebrew Bible, Jeremiah is also regarded as a prophet in Islam by many Muslims. Jeremiah is not mentioned in the Qur'an, but Muslim exegesis and literature narrates many instances from the life of Jeremiah and tradition fleshes out his narrative. Muslim literature narrates a detailed account of the destruction of Jerusalem, which parallels the account given in the Book of Jeremiah.[72]
God is the one who gives a heart to His people to know Him in Jer 24:7. This theme is carried through a promise of a New Covenant which rests on God. In Augustine's view even the perseverance rests on God. Augustine says, drawing from Jer 32:40, "Because perseverance is much more difficult when the persecutor is engaged in preventing a man's perseverance; and therefore he is sustained in his perseverance unto death. Hence it is more difficult to have the former perseverance,-easier to have the latter; but to Him to whom nothing is difficult it is easy to give both. For God has promised this, saying, 'I will put my fear in their hearts, that they may not depart from me.' And what else is this than, “Such and so great shall be my fear that I will put into their hearts that they will perseveringly cleave to me”?" in his work , On the Gift of Perseverance 2 ( see http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-05/npnf1-05-44.htm#P6934_2648698 )
Scholars cannot with any certainty prove the authorship of Jeremiah, although consensus has gathered around a thesis of multiple sources, mainly because of the contrast between the poetic discourses and the prose narrative. It is possible that the Deuteronomist and/or the scribe Baruch recorded and edited the original prophecies.[73] Some modern Scholars think the Deuteronomic School edited Jeremiah because of the similarity of phrasing between the books of Jeremiah and Deuteronomy. For example, Egypt is referred to as an "iron furnace" in both Jeremiah 11:4 and Deuteronomy 4:20.[74] They also share a similar view of divine justice.[74]
In July 2007, Assyrologist Michael Jursa translated a cuneiform tablet dated to 595 BC, as describing a Nabusharrussu-ukin as "the chief eunuch" of Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. Jursa hypothesized that this reference might be to the same individual as the Nebo-Sarsekim mentioned in Jeremiah 39:3.[75][76]
Jeremiah inspired the French noun jérémiade, and subsequently the English jeremiad, meaning "a lamentation; mournful complaint,"[77] or further, "a cautionary or angry harangue."[78]
Jeremiah has periodically been a popular first name in the United States, beginning with the early Puritan settlers, who often took the names of Biblical prophets and apostles. In Ireland, Jeremiah was used to "translate" the Irish name Diarmuid.
Austrian author Stefan Zweig wrote a pacifist play called Jeremiah during World War I.
Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 1 is also known as "Jeremiah." Its three movements are Prophecy, Profanation, and Lamentation.
Bertold Hummel named his Symphony No. 3 "Jeremiah". Its four movements are I. Anathot II. Babylon III. Lamentationes Jeremiae and IV. Hymnus-Lakén Jeremiah
Sting made a reference to the prophet on his album The Soul Cages with his song "Jeremiah Blues (Part 1)".
A 1998 TV movie version of Jeremiah`s life starred Patrick Dempsey.
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